“I think it is. I mean, that’s what she keeps saying.”

My neck felt tight, so I stood, looked him in the eye. He was at least four inches taller than I was. “No. She wants to know if you love her.” I wobbled with postshutdown dizziness, and he steadied me, his fingers on my shoulder.

“There now,” he said. “You want to sit back down?”

I bobbled forward, swiped my head against his shoulder, and caught a whiff of clean shirt. “I’m so sorry. After I wake up, I have no filter or balance. It’s part of this weird sleep disorder I have.”

“You might be right. About my wife. We’re separated. We’re divorcing.” He looked like he was going to say more, but what? This last statement was very personal, considering our two-minute history. I felt that bubble of interest again, and if I could have, I would have watched what it was going to do next.

His phone buzzed, and he said, “I’ve gotta take this. You okay?”

I nodded, and he bolted from the room, and I realized I couldn’t hide any longer either.

Thanks to being awakened by Beautiful Man, as I had dubbed him, I returned to Katie’s room in under twenty minutes. I tried to act like an attentive friend who had taken a crucial break to eparent. I gestured to my phone with a loving and exasperated kids these days expression. Katie’s and Holly’s heads were bowed in conversation, and they missed my improvisational theater. I added dialogue.

“Maddie wants to study abroad during spring semester.” This was not a lie. Maddie did want to go to Ireland starting in January. It rolled off my tongue easily, as the worry of how alone I would soon be was ever present.

“How was the nap?” Holly said.

I knew this trick. My next move would either expose me as a liar and an unstable napper, giving Holly the edge. Or, if I was careful, I could reframe myself as an efficient snoozer and ever-present problem solver.

“It was good. Thanks. You know me. Stop, drop, and drool, then good as new. Don’t you think Maddie should study abroad after her freshman year? Second semester seems too soon.”

Kind, supportive Katie considered the pedagogical benefits of the early abroad experience. She thought that this was a real conversation and not a red herring for Holly to keep her from co-opting and controlling everything, but Holly saw right through my subterfuge.

“California is two thousand miles, Samantha. It’ll take days. You’ll have to stop and sleep everywhere. I’ll go. I’ve done long road trips before. I can fly out and drive back in a few days.”

“Would Rosie go with you?” Katie asked.

I felt this whole thing sliding too quickly through my fingers. The world extolled the value of sleep, but the cost of missing key conversations where decisions were made was a tax levied only on the well rested. I felt like I was in the middle of a coup. I heard my voice go up and shake, betraying my fear of being edged out of this mission to help Katie. To prove myself. “You guys, I can do it.”

“No, Rosie can’t go. She’s too close to her due date,” said Holly as if I hadn’t said a thing.

I saw myself as one of those wind socks outside a car dealership getting whipped around by air. Katie stole a quick glance at me, then dropped her eyes to her lap.

“Pregnant?” Even in my shock at the news and how much I had missed, I knew not to ask how or why or by whom or anything even close to something that might sound too personal or judgmental or clueless.

There was a time when we three knew everything about each other’s lives, but that was ages ago. I knew Katie got yeast infections when she was stressed, and Holly hiccupped when she ate too fast. I knew that Holly’s left eye fluttered when she tried to lie, and Katie always saw that flutter first. It was like that when you lived, almost literally, on top of each other in college. We had been a triangle of friendship. After graduation we lost our geometry of connection. We became Katie and Holly. Katie and Samantha. But, Holly and Samantha, quoth the raven, nevermore.

Over time I stopped asking about Holly’s life, and I assumed she, mine. Of course, Katie and I had speculated about what had truly ruined our friendship. Sure, there was that huge misunderstanding. The blowup. But we’d talked about it. Sorted it out. I knew Katie had asked Holly at least once, but when Holly had snapped back with the response “Ask Samantha,” Katie had left it alone.

After college it was easy to avoid addressing the elephant in the room between us because we no longer shared a room, or a college, or even a state. Holly went directly to law school in Texas and afterward practiced in a huge firm in New York. One of those fearsome places that consumed their lawyers. Even for good friends it was easy to drift apart. Add our life inexperience to the fraying thread of our friendship; we didn’t know how lucky we were, and we let it go, like it was a bit of fluff and not a lifeline.

“A baby.” I pulled a chair under me.

Katie grabbed Holly’s hand and said, “I lost track! It seemed to go so fast.”

“Don’t say that to Rosie. The wait has been excruciating.”

My whole life I’d planned on having two children. Two babies with hardworking, sturdy, mousey-brown-hair DNA. I knew how lucky I was to have Maddie, but I’d wanted a sister for my solitary girl. I’d always longed for a sibling, especially to join arms against my dad when he went on the warpath—or at least to commiserate with. Living with Katie and Holly was like finally having people under the same roof who actively had my back. It was better than having sisters because there was no controlling father, no passive mother, only us.

Holly looked at me and interpreted my wet eyes as kindness, and her face softened. But I wanted to grab underneath her toned and tan arm and pinch her. I’d handled a lot of baby news from both friends and strangers. I should have said Katie and I handled other people’s reproduction news together—both of us wanting, yearning for a child. When I got pregnant, it felt like a betrayal, and I’d made Katie Maddie’s godmother.

I searched for Katie’s hand and thought, My God, Holly got everything she wanted. A lucrative career, a life partner, a complete family, friendship, and her outrage at me.

“We’re keeping Rosie’s stress to a minimum. Since she’s older they say she’s high risk. But I can go alone, do it quickly.”

“How are you going to manage Peanut’s insulin?” I knew this was a low blow, but I wasn’t going to sit there and be shoved out of the dog-rescue bus.

“Oh, I’ll figure it out.”

“Is that right?” I lifted Katie’s hand. The one with the IV, the tiny spot of blood on the tape and in the tubing, and moved it to Holly’s face. “Don’t think I haven’t seen you averting your eyes from this right here.” I waved the IV tubing in Holly’s face.

Holly closed her eyes and turned her head like a nasty scent had wafted up from the intravenous line. “Don’t.”

Katie giggled.

“You forget that we were all together in college when you woke up from your appendectomy,” I said, without adding how I’d called the ambulance and insisted that I ride in the back. How I’d lied and told the driver that I was her sister, and how it had felt when Holly squeezed my hand as if to say, You are.

“When you saw your IV, you turned the color of a paper cup, and then your eyes rolled back.” Katie stifled another giggle, but I could see this was as fun for her as it was for me.

I held Katie’s arm aloft, felt the soft suede underbelly of her wrist where the fortune-teller, our senior year, had counted the creases just under the meaty heel of her hand. See these three lines? the too-young crystal gazer said. The folds predict three children will come from your belly. We’d paid five dollars at the Blues Festival for three lies and no truth, and we weren’t even playing the game. I would have a long, happy marriage, Katie would have three children, and we all would be friends for life.

Holly pushed Katie’s arm away, keeping her eyes on the dotted ceiling tile.

“She’s got you,” Katie said. It was fun for everyone when Holly had to admit defeat.

“Can’t the dog eat insulin? Isn’t there medicine for that? My grandma takes a pill,” said Holly.

“Peanut needs shots. The pills don’t work for him,” said Katie.

Holly’s phone pinged, and she put her finger up. That long-ass finger she used when making a point, holding court, admonishing. Her finger was a minimodel of Holly herself. Everything about her was long and high handed. She’d been like that in college too: long, correct, but funnier. When Holly stood, it was like a yardstick unfolding to make a point. She answered her phone, “Ralph. Yeah. Go on,” and with one step she moved out of the room.

Katie glanced at the hall and whispered, “You have to take Holly with you.”